OnScene Nation

06/19/2026

The "tribal" or insular mentality you are noticing in Southwest Missouri (SWMO) isn't just an accident; it is deeply baked into the geography, history, and cultural evolution of the Ozarks.
When people talk about a "tribal mentality" in regions like SWMO—encompassing Springfield, Joplin, Branson, and the surrounding rural counties—they are usually referring to a powerful "us versus them" dynamic, an intense distrust of outsiders, and a fierce enforcement of local social norms.
Several historical and cultural forces keep SWMO rooted in this mindset.
1. The Heritage of Isolation (The Ozark Scotch-Irish Roots)
The cultural bedrock of SWMO was largely settled by Upland Southerners—predominantly Scotch-Irish immigrants who migrated from the Appalachian Mountains in the 19th century.
Distrust of Authority: These settlers chose the rugged, rocky, and infertile terrain of the Ozarks precisely because it allowed them to be left alone. Historically, they survived by relying strictly on immediate family and tight-knit clans, viewing centralized government, tax collectors, and urban outsiders with deep suspicion.
Echoes Today: While SWMO is no longer physically isolated, that ancestral DNA of "we take care of our own, and we don't trust what's coming from the outside" remains a default cultural setting.
2. The "Buckle of the Bible Belt"
Springfield is frequently referred to as the buckle of the Bible Belt, serving as the international headquarters for the Assemblies of God and home to multiple religious universities (like Evangel and Baptist Bible College).
The Built-In In-Group: In SWMO, church is not just a place of worship; it is the primary civic, social, and economic network. If you belong to the right church community, you have an instant, incredibly supportive "tribe."
The Consequence: If you are outside of that religious framework—whether you are secular, from a different faith, or hold progressive values—the barrier to entry into local society can feel completely impenetrable. This creates a cultural echo chamber where challenging the dominant consensus is viewed not just as a disagreement, but as a moral failing.
3. Deep-Seated Scarring from the Civil War
Missouri was a deeply divided border state, but the Ozarks experienced a specific brand of trauma. The region wasn't just fought over by organized armies; it was terrorized by neighbor-on-neighbor guerrilla warfare (bushwhackers and jayhawkers).

During the Civil War, survival in the Ozarks depended entirely on knowing exactly who was on your side and treating everyone else as a mortal threat.

That historical trauma fostered a defensive, hyper-vigilant mindset: protect the inner circle at all costs, because outsiders bring chaos.
4. Economic Disparity and the Brain Drain
While Springfield and the Highway 65/I-44 corridors have seen corporate growth, much of rural SWMO has historically battled generational poverty.
When rural areas face economic stagnation, younger, college-educated populations often move away (brain drain).
The population that remains tends to skew older and more traditional. When a community feels economically forgotten or culturally mocked by the rest of the country, it naturally circles the wagons. This defensive posture manifests as a fierce rejection of "national" or "coastal" cultural shifts in favor of preserving local identity.
5. Homogeneity and the Lack of Exposure
Demographically, SWMO has historically been one of the most racially and culturally homogeneous regions in the country. While areas like Springfield and McDonald County (with its poultry processing industry) have diversified significantly in recent decades, many pockets remain isolated from differing perspectives.
Without regular, everyday exposure to different cultures, lifestyles, or political ideologies, anything "other" is easily villainized or viewed with anxiety.
The Two Sides of the Coin
The exact same cultural traits that create an insular, stubborn, "tribal" environment are also what make SWMO communities incredibly tight-knit. It is a region where neighbors will show up with chainsaws and casseroles two hours after a tornado hits without asking for a dime. The tragedy of the "tribe" is that the wall built to keep the community safe and close-knit is the exact same wall that makes everyone on the outside feel excluded.

06/19/2026

06/19/2026

I spoke with the antiabortion people at Third Thursday tonight. While it was a good conversation and I do believe their hearts are in the right place. I did have to share some information I found about one site they used as evidence. You can find the website in the comments.

The article in question is titled "The Scientific Consensus on When a Human's Life Begins" (2021) by Steven Andrew Jacobs, published in Issues in Law & Medicine (PMID: 36629778). The paper reports that 96% of 5,577 surveyed biologists affirmed the "fertilization view"—the biological view that a human's life begins at fertilization.
While the data point has been widely cited in public and legal debates, scientific and academic commentators have pointed out several pieces of missing information, methodological limitations, and potentially misleading framings in how the study is presented:
1. Misleading Framing: Conflating "Biological Life" with "Personhood"
The study’s title and abstract imply a "scientific consensus" on a deeply philosophical, legal, and moral question: When does a human life begin? * The Missing Distinction: In science, "life" can mean two very different things: biological life (the existence of a metabolically active, living organism with unique human DNA) and philosophical/legal personhood (when that organism acquires moral rights, consciousness, or legal status).
Why it's misleading: By asking biologists a simplified question, the survey captures a near-unanimous agreement on a basic biological definition (a zygote is alive and belongs to the Homo sapiens species). However, citing this as a "scientific consensus" to influence abortion policy or reproductive rights is misleading, as the majority of biologists do not necessarily believe that biological fertilization equates to moral personhood.
2. Methodological Bias and Low Response Rate (Missing Context)
The abstract highlights that 5,577 biologists responded. What is often missing from public representations of this paper is the overall response rate.
The Missing Data: Jacobs sent the survey to over 60,000 biologists globally. A sample size of ~5,500 means the response rate was around 9%.
Potential Selection Bias: In survey methodology, a 9% response rate introduces a high risk of "self-selection bias." Biologists who held strong personal, philosophical, or religious views on the matter may have been far more motivated to complete a lengthy survey about fertilization and abortion than those who viewed it as a non-scientific or politically charged topic.
3. Missing Information on Question Phrasing ("Leading" Questions)
The study has been criticized for using survey questions that may have nudged or led participants toward a specific answer.
Many of the statements respondents were asked to rate used biological truisms (e.g., whether a zygote is biologically alive and genetically distinct) rather than testing whether they believed fertilization is the definitive marker of a "human being" in a societal or moral sense. When forced to answer binary "true or false" style biological definitions, scientists will naturally affirm the biological facts, even if they disagree with how those facts are being framed contextually.
4. Journal Selection and Potential Conflict of Interest
The paper was published in Issues in Law & Medicine.
Missing Context: While indexed on PubMed, this journal is published by the National Legal Center for the Medically Dependent and Disabled, an organization with an explicit anti-abortion and pro-life legal advocacy mandate. It is not a mainstream, peer-reviewed biological or medical journal like Nature, Science, or The Lancet. Failing to disclose the advocacy nature of the publishing journal can mislead readers into thinking this was an independent study vetted by mainstream biological societies.

Summary
The study is not necessarily "fake data," but it is arguably misleading in its interpretation. It establishes that biologists agree a zygote is biologically alive and human. It omits the critical context that biological categorization does not equate to a consensus on the moral, legal, or philosophical status of an embryo, and it suffers from a low survey response rate that limits its ability to claim a true, universal "scientific consensus."

06/18/2026

Upon request I dug into this story a little bit. The headline and the story is pretty direct. Telling how to think and shaping things pretty well for the anti-immigrant audience. Then I look at a few things that would take using your own mind to understand.

Let’s start with the first screen shot for everyone. He was arrested this year at the age of 31. His visa expired in 2001. So as a 6 year old child they believe he should have packed up his things and head out of country. This is the level of ignorance we are at. How is no one else reading this and seeing the same thing? This man grew up in America. This man probably has no memory of the land he was born in.

Second screenshot. Is he a co-conspirator or ringleader? They can’t seem to get this straight in the article.

Third screenshot. He is back to leading it all. I can’t wait to see the evidence of this and they have to double down on the illegal alien part. Even though he has been in America since he was probably 2 years old.

Last 2 screenshots are to give props to the person who had the big gotcha moment that was going to change everything. Good job Jonny!!! 😉 

Link in the comments if y’all want to make sure I’m not making things up.

06/17/2026

Daniel K. Eskridge, 32, of Kidder, conspired to plan and execute a mass casualty event targeting U.S. officials in attendance at UFC Freedom 250

My purpose isn’t to tell you everything you already know from every other page and media article. It is to give you a glimpse of who he was. It is to show what we should be watching for before the media comes in and spins their narrative and his existence is white washed.

06/17/2026

If wearing a hat is too much maybe you should look into Joplin City Government and Webb City. They make the people in the crowd take part in a prayer before every meeting. Wouldn’t this be violation under the same laws you already stated Missouri Attorney General Catherine L. Hanaway?

06/17/2026

Is this really how we want to live as Americans? 😢

This is 1-year-old Kohen Wiley. Investigators say he was killed after a police officer opened fire on a vehicle in a Mississippi Walmart parking lot while responding to a shoplifting call: http://www.wfaa.com/article/news/nation-world/senatobia-mississippi-police-shooting-into-vehicle-killing-baby-protests/507-906671aa-f7e6-44d2-aeab-a00c30812174?utm_medium=social&utm_source=facebook_WFAA

06/17/2026

Spiritual experience is like a diet—something that can be expanded, curated, and understood through variety—is a much more accurate way to describe how humans actually learn.
If we only ever eat what we were fed as children, we never learn our own tastes.
If we never look at another religion, we don't just "stay in our lane"—we lose the ability to understand why we believe what we do in the first place, because we have no contrast to define our own values against.

"How can you betray something you don’t truly know?" cuts through the psychological trap that keeps many people tethered to a single belief system. It highlights that the "betrayal" often cited by religious institutions is actually a manufactured guilt, designed to protect the status quo rather than honor the individual's genuine journey toward understanding.

The "Betrayal" of Intellectual Honesty:
When people feel that exploring another path is a "betrayal," they are often prioritizing loyalty to a system over loyalty to their own capacity to reason.
If you were raised in a specific faith, you were given a map. If you never look at any other maps, you have no way of knowing if yours is accurate, incomplete, or merely a localized view of a much larger continent. To stay on that one map without ever questioning its boundaries isn't "loyalty"—it is a refusal to observe the terrain. In that sense, refusing to learn about others is arguably a greater betrayal of the human faculty of curiosity.

Why Interconnectivity is the Antidote to Division:
The fear of "tasting" another religion is a fear of discovering that your foundation might be built on the same materials as everyone else's.
If people acknowledged that their spiritual practices are essentially a "diet"—a way of processing the immense, often chaotic, and unprovable nature of existence—it would be impossible to justify the animosity and division that characterize modern religious discourse. If I know that your "flavor" of faith is just another way of seeking meaning in the same vast void I am looking into, we move from being competitors for "The Truth" to being fellow travelers sharing our notes on the journey.
By focusing on knowledge and perspective instead of Truth, you are stripping away the conflict. You are treating the world's religions not as a series of hostile bunkers, but as a vast, ancient, and deeply human library.

These are not just religious issues; they are deeply human, biological responses. We are wired to value tribal belonging because, for most of human history, being ostracized meant death. To question the "Truth" of your group is to threaten your standing in that group, which triggers an ancient, reflexive fear of survival.

Would you eat an apple and only listen to others about how an orange tastes? No!!! So consume every fruit and find the glory of them all. The more religions you practice and understand the more flavor you add to your life!

06/17/2026

I have big questions about the female involved. Did she have a weapon? Did the suspect shoot her? Did the police shoot her? What happened. Who wants to bet we hear nothing more?

Here's the latest update: https://www.fourstateshomepage.com/news/local/i44-traffic-delay-shooting/

Interstate 44 is back open in both directions after being closed for over eight and a half hours but is still seeing significant traffic delays as the result of an officer involved shooting and reported hostage incident near the Miami Welcome Center Tuesday morning, which left two people dead.